About the Author
George R. R. Martin is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including those of the acclaimed series A Song of Ice and Fire—A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons—as well as related works such as Fire & Blood, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and The World of Ice & Fire, with Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson. Other novels include Tuf Voyaging, Fevre Dream, The Armageddon Rag, Dying of the Light, Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle), and Dreamsongs Volumes I and II. As a writer-producer, he has worked on The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and pilots that were never made. He lives with his lovely wife, Parris, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Lauren K. Cannon is a horror and dark fantasy illustrator. She spent most of her life in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, home of the Jersey Devil. Growing up in an eerie forest fueled her attraction to the macabre. Her work is defined by dark beauty and quiet intensity; she also collects bones and keeps Halloween decorations in her home year-round. She currently lives in a non-haunted part of New Jersey with her fiancé and rescue cat. Cannon is known for her work with Peter V. Brett, the bestselling author of The Demon Cycle, including the cover of his 2018 novella Barren.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ARYA
At Winterfell they had called her "Arya Horseface" and she'd thoughtnothing could be worse, but that was before the orphan boy Lommy Greenhands hadnamed her "Lumpyhead."
Her head felt lumpy when she touched it. When Yoren had dragged herinto that alley she'd thought he meant to kill her, but the sour old man had
only held her tight, sawing through her mats and tangles with his dagger. Sheremembered how the breeze sent the fistfuls of dirty brown hair skitteringacross the paving stones, toward the sept where her father had died. "I'mtaking men and boys from the city," Yoren growled as the sharp steel scraped
at her head. "Now you hold still, boy." By the time he hadfinished, her scalp was nothing but tufts and stubble.
Afterward he told her that from there to Winterfell she'd be Arry theorphan boy. "Gate shouldn't be hard, but the road's another matter. You got along way to go in bad company. I got thirty this time, men and boys all boundfor the Wall, and don't be thinking they're like that bastard brother o'yours." He shook her. "Lord Eddard gave me pick o' the dungeons, and I didn'tfind no little lordlings down there. This lot, half o' them would turn you overto the queen quick as spit for a pardon and maybe a few silvers. The otherhalf'd do the same, only they'd rape you first. So you keep to yourself andmake your water in the woods,alone. That'll be the hardest part, the pissing, so don't drink no more'n youneed."
Leaving King's Landing was easy, just like he'd said. The Lannister guardsmen on the gate were stopping everyone, but Yoren called one by name and their wagons were waved through. No one spared Arya a glance. They were looking for a highborn girl, daughter of the King's Hand, not for a skinny boy with his hair chopped off. Arya never looked back. She wished the Rush would rise and wash the whole city away, Flea Bottom and the Red Keep and the Great Sept andeverything, and everyone too, especially Prince Joffrey andhis mother. But she knew it wouldn't, and anyhow Sansa was still in the city
and would wash away too. When she remembered that, Arya decided to wish forWinterfell instead.
Yoren was wrong about the pissing, though. That wasn't the hardest part at all; Lommy Greenhands and Hot Pie were the hardest part. Orphan boys. Yoren hadplucked some from the streets with promises of food for their bellies and shoesfor their feet. The rest he'd found in chains. "The Watch needs good men," hetold them as they set out, "but you lot will have to do."
Yoren had taken grown men from the dungeons as well, thieves and poachers and rapers and the like. The worst were the three he'd found in the black cells who must have scared even him, because he kept them fettered hand and foot in the back of a wagon, and vowed they'd stay in irons all the way to the Wall. Onehad no nose, only the hole in his face where it had been cut off, and the grossfat bald one with the pointed teeth and theweeping sores on his cheeks had eyes like nothing human.
They took five wagons out of King's Landing, laden with supplies for the Wall: hides and bolts of cloth, bars of pig iron, a cage of ravens, books and paper and ink, a bale of sourleaf, jars of oil, and chests of medicine and spices. Teams of plow horses pulled the wagons, and Yoren had bought two coursers and a half-dozen donkeys for the boys. Arya would have preferred a real horse, but the donkey was better than riding on a wagon.
The men paid her no mind, but she was not so lucky with the boys. She was two years younger than the youngest orphan, not to mention smaller and skinnier,and Lommy and Hot Pie took her silence to mean she was scared, or stupid, or
deaf. "Look at that sword Lumpyhead's got there," Lommy said one morning asthey made their plodding way past orchards and wheat fields. He'd been a dyer'sapprentice before he was caught stealing, and his arms were mottled green to
the elbow. When he laughed he brayed like the donkeys they were riding."Where's a gutter rat like Lumpyhead get him a sword?"
Arya chewed her lip sullenly. She could see the back of Yoren's faded blackcloak up ahead of the wagons, but she was determined not to go crying to him
for help.
"Maybe he's a little squire," Hot Pie put in. His mother had been a bakerbefore she died, and he'd pushed her cart through the streets all day, shouting"Hot pies! Hot pies!" "Some lordy lord's little squire boy, that'sit."
"He ain't no squire, look at him. I bet that's not even areal sword. I bet it's just some play sword made of tin."
Arya hated them making fun of Needle. "It's castle-forged steel, you stupid," she snapped, turning in the saddle to glare at them, "and you better shut your mouth."
The orphan boys hooted. "Where'd you get a blade like that, Lumpyface?" HotPie wanted to know.
"Lumpyhead," corrected Lommy. "He prob'ly stole it."
"I did not!" she shouted. Jon Snow had given her Needle. Maybe shehad to let them call her Lumpyhead, but she wasn't going to let them call Jon athief.
"If he stole it, we could take it off him," said Hot Pie. "It's not his
anyhow. I could use me a sword like that."
Lommy egged him on. "Go on, take it off him, I dare you."
Hot Pie kicked his donkey, riding closer. "Hey, Lumpyface, you gimme thatsword." His hair was the color of straw, his fat face all sunburnt andpeeling. "You don't know how to use it."
Yes I do, Arya could have said. I killed a boy, a fat boy likeyou, I stabbed him in the belly and he died, and I'll kill you too if you don'tlet me alone. Only she did not dare. Yoren didn't know about thestableboy, but she was afraid of what he might do if he found out. Arya waspretty sure that some of the other men were killers too, the three in themanacles for sure, but the queen wasn't looking for them, so itwasn't the same.
"Look at him," brayed Lommy Greenhands. "I bet he's going to cry now. Youwant to cry, Lumpyhead?"
She had cried in her sleep the night before, dreaming of herfather. Come morning, she'd woken red-eyed and dry, and could not have shedanother tear if her life had hung on it.
